The Kind Hand of Friendship
by Misty Day
Summary: Abbe makes a true friend and rediscovers the joy of living. Takes place after the movie. Rated for violence. Please review if you enjoyed.
1. The Cold Within

Charenton is cold. Well, at least it is in my cell, which leads me too assume it's cold everywhere else. The place is made of stone; stone walls, stone floors, stone ceilings, and worst of all, stone hearts. It seems that no one here understands you. No doctor, or nurse, or administrative figure . . . no one. Not even fellow patients. It's kind of a sad situation. I was put in Charenton to recover from an illness, not to be treated like an animal and have no hope of recovery. I'm not that old, and with help, I could have a bright and promising future. But I guess now that I'm here, I'll have to rethink my get-better strategy. I thought that a doctor could cure me of what ails me and send me on my way after a few weeks. But during my first few days, I could already tell that wasn't going to be that case.

The first day I was here, I was put into a room with a bed and a single candle placed in a candleholder. I was given one match, and every time I needed my candle relit, I had to ask for a new match. I was given one dress to wear, which was ragged and old, with lots of tears near the bottom seem. There was very little to do, seeing as I wasn't assigned a job for quite some time. I asked a laundry lass if maybe I could have something to read, perhaps from another inmate, that might help to pass the time faster. Well, that never happened. So I was stuck in my little cold room with nothing to do.

I'm not so easily bored, so I decided to count the stone blocks in each wall. I started in the corner by the door, next to the floor. I tapped each block and whispered each number to myself. When the blocks got to high for me to tap, I stepped back and counted louder. I counted all the blocks in three of the walls, which had taken quite some time. I wanted to remember the number of blocks (for whatever reason,) so I asked a guard for a quill, some ink, and a piece of paper.

The guard thought it was stupid to want to remember how many stones where in the walls, but I convinced him to let me write them down. He told me he would only give me enough to write down the numbers that I had been trying hard not to forget. He handed me the things I asked for, and I wrote down the totals. I thanked him, and handed him back the ink and quill, keeping the whole piece of paper that he gave me by mistake. By the time I noticed that I'd kept all of the paper, he shut the latch on the door and seemed to have forgotten about it.

I thought I would count the stones in the last wall and then try to figure out what to do from there. Maybe I could fold the paper into something. Anything to keep my mind busy.

I started at the bottom of the last wall. I moved the table on which the candlestick stood, and I tapped the blocks once more, counting to myself as I went. When I tapped on a stone that was just about chest-level, I felt it shift a bit. I flinched. The moving had startled me. But then it dawned on me that maybe there was someone on the other side of the wall I could talk to, another lonely person sitting in a cold cell, like my own. So, I dug the stone out of it's place and pulled it toward me, the stone making a scraping sound.

I sat it down on the table and peered into the hole. I saw a huge room that contained a table, a chair, and a small, untidy bed, close to the hole. I saw no one and thought it might be a rather empty storage room. Surely no one here had a room that large to them self. I looked closer at the table and noticed a few pieces of paper lying on it. I became lost in a thought of what might be written on the paper, and suddenly a pair of eyes appeared in front of me. I jumped back and nearly screamed, but instead only held my chest and felt my heart beating wildly. I peered through the hole again cautiously, this time keeping some distance. I heard the breathing of the person through the hole. They sounded just as afraid. By the look of the eyes, I decided that the person was a young man.

"Hello," I stammered, my voice quivering. I thought about what to say next, but nothing came to mind. His eyes seemed to pierce right through me. I was petrified. I introduced myself nervously, but he never said a word, he only stared, shaking slightly and breathing hard.

"Are you okay?" I asked, not knowing what else to say. He looked at away and suddenly became very sad. He looked like he was going to cry. "What's your name?" I asked, trying to calm him down.

He muttered his name quietly, "Coulmier."

He looked back up at me, heartbroken. "What's wrong?" I said softly, coming closer to the hole. His eyes filled with tears and he turned his back to me. He laid on the bed and wept quietly for a while. I was puzzled. I didn't know what was wrong with him; he didn't seem insane or anything like that, so why was he here?

I called his name a few times, but he didn't answer. He only cried harder. I thought that I should find a way to help him feel better. I felt like I had been the reason he was crying and therefore had to help him. I looked around me and all I had was my own bed, a table, a candle in a candleholder, and a piece of paper. Suddenly, I had an idea. I would fold him something out of the paper. I decided that making him feel better would be better than having a paper with meaningless numbers on it. I sat down on the cold floor and thought about how I should fold it, then set to work on making it the desired shape. I tore it into a smaller piece, and made a few simple folds. I folded the piece of paper into a heart. I figured it might comfort him some.

I got up and walked back over to the hole and whispered to him. "Hey, I have something for you."

He got quiet for a minute and I heard him say between sniffs, "What is it?"

"Come to the hole and I'll hand it to you."

He sat up in his bed and faced me, his face streaked with tears. "I made this for you to help you feel better," I said softly, handing him the paper heart. I felt him take it and I looked back through the hole to see him staring at it. He looked back up at me with a look of thoughtfulness in his eyes. He wiped away the remaining tears in his eyes and said, "Thank you," very quietly.

"Your welcome," I answered him, smiling. "Anytime you want to talk to me, I'll be here. It's too cold to go outside during our recreation time, and I don't have a job yet. So if you ever need anything, just call my name."

"You'd better replace the stone now, the guards could come in at anytime and you could get in a lot of trouble," he said.

"But I want someone to talk to," I admitted. "I'm all alone in here and you are the only one I have to talk to. I don't consider talking to the guards or laundry lasses 'talking.' They don't really 'listen.'"

"Then we'll talk tonight after everyone else is sleeping. It's the only safe way to talk without fear of being caught and getting punished."

"Okay," I agreed. "Tonight, then," and then I replaced the stone.

I hoped very much that I'd helped to cheer him up some. That night I would try my hardest to find out what was wrong with him and why he was so sad. He was my only friend, and I wanted to help him. After all, that's what friends are for.


	2. His Madness

I waited until nightfall and when I thought everyone was in bed, I removed the stone and sat on the table next to the hole. Coulmier was sitting up in bed and looking through the hole at me. I lit my only candle and placed it in front of me. His room was dark for he had no light.

"Don't you have any candles?" I wondered aloud to him.

"I do, but I have no matches," he responded.

"Give me your candle and I'll light it," I said, and he did. I lit the candle and handed in back to him quickly through the hole so as not to extinguish the flame. He thanked me and sat the candle near him.

Now as I peered through the hole, I noticed some of his features. I could see from the dim lighting that he hadn't had much sleep lately. He had large, dark circles under his eyes. His hair was shoulder length, dark and curly. It fell into strands over his face, casting an almost evil shadow. I noticed he had a small scar above his upper lip. I noticed that he had beautiful eyes. They pierced thru the darkness and the shadows and looked into my eyes with an emotion I could only assume was fear.

"Are you okay?" I asked again, hoping to get better results from my question this time.

"I am a tortured soul," he whispered. "I have stared into the face of evil. I have danced with the devil. You needn't hear my tale to know that I am mad, would you? Look at me. If it hadn't been for him, this would have never happened."

"If it hadn't been for who?" I whispered back, trying my hardest to keep my voice down.

"Him," he answered back.

I was confused. How was I to get him to talk about what was wrong if he talked in riddles? I thought I'd ask a more general question to see if I could get him to talk.

"So, where are you from?"

He pondered a moment before answering, "I don't remember."

This wasn't helping. Maybe, I thought to myself, I should just skip the small talk. I took a deep breath before speaking.

"Why are you here?"

"I have been driven insane by him."

"By who, Coulmier?"

"Him. Royer-Collard."

I thought for a moment to recall who that was. "Oh, the doctor?"

"He is not a righteous man. He spreads a doctrine of lies."

I started to ask why, but he asked a question of me first. He asked if I knew how to read. I replied that I could because my father had had some religious training and that he had taught me. He got up and walked somewhere into the darkness of his room, and returned with some papers in his hand. He rolled them up and slid them through the hole. "Here," he said. "And don't let anyone know of your knowledge of these papers, promise me."

I promised with all my heart, took the papers and asked what they were. He told me they were the tale of his stay at Charenton. I assured him I would read them when it was daylight. He told me he didn't wish to speak anymore and blew his candle out. I wanted to talk further with him, but thought it better to let him rest. He looked like he could use it. After I replaced the stone I blew out my candle and placed the papers beneath my bed. It seemed I had not yet found a way to help him feel better, only caused him to remember a dreadful past. I would pour over the manuscript in the morning in search of answers that could help me help him. Soon I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Coulmier. He was smiling at me. Maybe I could help him after all.


	3. The Manuscript

The next morning I woke up to find that there was less of a chill in the air than normal. I had gotten up, made my bed, and was stretching when I heard a knock at the door. "Yes?" I spoke, curious of who was visiting me. A pair of eyes appeared through the door window and a voice asked me if I would like to spend some time outside, due to the unseasonably warm weather we were having that morning. I was about to oblige, but then I thought I could take that time to talk to Coulmier. I told the guard, "No thank you," and the guard walked away.

The guards would all be needed outside to watch over the patients, so I knew I could talk uninterrupted and without fear of being caught. When I had heard the last footsteps scurry out of the hall, I walked over to the wall and pulled out the stone. Coulmier didn't come to the hole. I called his name; no answer. He wasn't there. I now regretted not going outside on what would probably be the last nice day outside until spring. I wondered if Coulmier was outside, but something told me he wasn't. I thought further about where else he might be. I hoped he wasn't in any danger, but I had an awful feeling he was.

I replaced the stone and sat on the table, leaning my back against the wall. The quietness seemed louder than the normal sounds of screaming and raving. It was the first time I had ever heard Charenton in complete silence. It was peaceful. It was hard to imagine Charenton ever being peaceful, but at that moment, it was so.

I lifted myself up and walked over to lie in my bed for a while, but my I remembered something. The manuscript. I had meant to read it first thing in the morning, but the thought had somehow slipped by me. I grabbed the papers and sat down on my bed to read them more comfortably. The first paragraph explained that he had been in Charenton for a year and that he knew he would never get out, to paraphrase. He mentioned that his only salvation now was to write of the tragic event that transpired in that very asylum.

I read on to discover that he used to be a priest! I would have never imagined him "Abbe de Coulmier." He also penned that he had ran the asylum solely on good will and Christian charity, taking in some who's family hadn't the means to care for them. He wrote that he hadn't had any big problems until one of his patients, a writer known as the Marquis de Sade, smuggled out a story that was published without his sanction, and it's offensive subject matter caused such an uproar that even the emperor Napoleon had been offended. He said that Doctor Royer-Collard had been sent to observe the asylum to make sure that Coulmier was doing his job right.

But no matter how hard he tried, Coulmier could not stop the Marquis from getting his writing published. Sade wrote a despicable play that caused the closing of the Charenton Theater along with many other things that caused life to be more miserable by the day for everyone. He eventually found out that the stories were somehow being sent to someone on the outside by way of a laundress named Madeleine LeClerc.

After the mention of her name, there was at least a page describing what she looked like, how she dressed, and an entire paragraph about her eyes. There was another whole page that told the secrets of his soul; every lustful thought he'd ever had about her, every encounter they'd had, even one event where he kissed her. The whole story was so filled with angst that I barely breathed as I approached the end of his tale.

He talked about how Madeleine so loved the stories by the Marquis that she asked him to tell her a story that she planned to write down after he had lost all of his means of writing. He told her the story through several other inmates, using the same strategy that I used to talk to Coulmier. The story ended so sadly telling about the timeless death of the only woman he ever loved at the hands of an inmate who got caught up in the story he was helping to tell Madeleine. He briefly mentioned a dream he'd had about her, but gave no details whatsoever. Then he finished by telling that the Marquis died while he was being given his last rites.

My heart was racing by the time I had finished reading. Could his story really be true? I could hardly see Coulmier being a priest involved in a murder which eventually drove him mad. It couldn't be possible. I decided to read the story again. Maybe I'd missed some part where he mentioned that the story simply isn't true. Some clue that eludes to the fact that the story is indeed fiction. But I found no such clue in reading it two, three or even four times. I finally decided to stop reading after my fourth time and try to let it all sink in. I placed the manuscript under my bed and laid down. I couldn't understand how the situation got out of hand so quickly. A murder resulted in one man writing a story.

I shut my eyes and replayed the events in my mind. Suddenly, I heard a loud screech, followed by an even louder slamming noise. I thought it might have been Coulmier being returned to his room. I heard much shouting before I heard footsteps pounding away. I waited until all was silent and, quietly as I could, removed the stone. I saw him standing in his room, crying. His shirt was bloody. I knew it; something bad had happened to him. I called out to him and he looked over at me, still standing next to the door.

"What happened?" I asked, being very concerned.

He paused a moment before answering. "The doctor saw fit to punish me."

"For what?"

"He knows about the papers smuggled to me. He knows I've been writing. This morning he sent his guards in and they tore my room apart. They took my bed and table and took my candle, and now I have nothing but a blanket in my room. They found nothing, or course, because you have my story."

It was then that I realized that if I hadn't made an effort to try and befriend him, he would have still had the papers in his room. He could have been killed. I knew at that moment that it was not a mistake for me to try and comfort him. He continued talking,

"One of the guards suspected a blind laundress of giving me paper, ink and a quill in a blanket. After being tortured she confessed and they came to take it from me. But they couldn't find it. They punished me anyway, whipping me, as I'm sure you can see," he turned around and pointed to his back. The back of his shirt was drenched in blood. I cringed at the sight of the red liquid and felt sick to my stomach.

He walked closer to the hole and spoke once more, this time more quietly. "Now I have a favor to ask of you."

"Anything," I responded, meaning it with all my heart.

"I need you to hide my papers."

"How am I to do that? I have no where to hide them."

"Your bedposts are hollow. Roll them up and stick them under your bedposts."

"I will." I said and sat to work doing so as he watched through the hole. I stood up and walked back to the hole. He spoke to me once more, "Now you are safe. No one ever needs to know those are there, save you and I."

He thanked me and gave me a weak and weary smile. He said he would very much like to rest and I agreed. I told him when he woke up to tap gently on the stone and because I would like to check on him. He agreed and I replaced the stone.

I had so many questions to ask, not only about the manuscript, but now about his punishment. How could he be so harshly punished for wanting to tell someone about what happened? I supposed that my quickly disappearing naivety stopped me from answering that question on my own.


	4. The Lashing

I sat on my bed and leaned against the wall, meditating on the manuscript. I would ask Coulmier many things when he awoke. I had many questions about his story, about things he was not specific enough about. Questions about his future, like whether or not he thought he would ever get better. I was beginning to wonder the same thing about myself. In this madhouse it seemed that no one ever got better. Without hearing any footsteps approach my door, my door swung open hard, scaring me terribly. I jolted out of my deep thinking as some men grabbed me and dragged me out of my room. I did not struggle, knowing it would not do any good.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked, trying hard to sound calm although my heart was racing.

"We searched Abbe de Coulmier's room thoroughly. We know you two talk through a small hole in the wall, a blemish in the craftsmanship of this building. Did you really believe we wouldn't find that little hole in the wall that connects both of your rooms?" The man replied roughly. I decided he must have been a guard that I had not seen before, and the other was one I saw often. I didn't answer him.

"Answer me!" he screamed, slapping me across the face.

"I don't know!" I cried.

"He gave you some papers through that hole, didn't he? Told you to hide them, didn't he?" he said, slapping me again.

"I don't know what your talking about!" I screamed back at him. I knew that they would kill both Coulmier and myself if I was honest, and I didn't believe the guard knew about my hiding place.

"Liar! Take her away, and give her forty lashes!"

I was dragged to a lower chamber of Charenton that I didn't know existed. It was filled with whips, canes, maces, and flogs, and the walls were lined with chains. I was lead to a place on one of the walls and instructed to undo the back of my dress and place my hands in the air. I did so, fearing the whole time that the guard was going to rape me. Being all alone in this torture chamber with an unknown person caused me not to rule out any possibility of what might happen. When I lifted my hands in the air he reached for some chains and clicked the locks shut around my wrists. I began to tremble hard. My breathing was rapid. I heard him take a few steps away as he chose his method of punishment. I could not see what he was reaching for, but I heard him mutter under his breath, "Priest's blood is still fresh on this one."

I knew at that time I was going to be whipped. My bare back exposed to him, he reared back the whip and I felt it crack against my skin. I flinched hard, but did not cry out. Another crack. I held my tongue. Another crack. I felt my skin break open and it was then that I cried out. Every lash felt harder and more filled with hatred that the last. He got to the tenth lash and stopped to ask me a question.

"Where are the papers?"

I took a deep breath and answered, "I don't know what you're talking about."

He continued to whip me. I felt my blood running down my back. Twenty lashes.

"Ready to confess yet?"

"I don't know what your talking about."

Thirty lashings causes a lot of blood loss. By the time lash number thirty-nine came around, the guard walked in front of me, looking at my tear-stained face without compassion. "You've got one last chance," he said dangerously. I wanted to confess. My wounds would be taken care of immediately, I might receive better care, and I might even have a chance at getting better during my stay here. All this, he promised me, if I'd only confess to where I'd hidden Coulmier's papers. But I was not willing to take away the only sanity that Coulmier had left, his writing, and more importantly, I had made a promise to a friend, a promise I was willing to do anything to keep.

So I did the only thing a friend would do in this situation. I spit in the guards face, and told him I had no idea what he was talking about, and I began shaming him for whipping an innocent young girl before he took a cane from the torture rack and whipped my back with it once. And though he only did it once, it was enough to make my knees buckle and I fell. I was held up by my chained wrists and no matter how I tried, I couldn't stand. Then something happened to me at that moment that had never happened to me before. I passed out.


	5. The Warmth Within

I woke to find myself lying on my stomach in a bed in the infirmary. I only opened one of my eyes, my other was swollen nearly shut from the slaps I'd received earlier. I lifted my head wearily before feeling it fall under my own weight. I heard a calm voice tell me to lie down and relax, that I was safe now. The voice was that of a woman's, and I supposed it was one of the nuns that worked in the infirmary. She sat down in front of me and told me a short story about why I was there.

"Honey, one of the sisters were passing by and they heard your screams and waited outside the door to say a prayer for you. When she was finished praying, she heard your cries suddenly stop, and looked inside to see you dangling there, passed against the wall. She shamed the guard, telling him how awful it was to treat such a kind young girl like yourself, who had done nothing wrong, with such force. She was even so bold as to slap him! She called a few of the other sisters to help her carry you here while the man unchained you. They carried you in here and tended to your wounds with great care. You had lost a lot of blood. You could have died. But their fast thinking helped to save your life. You're lucky to still be alive."

What irony she spoke with her last words. Lucky. Was I really lucky to still be in Charenton? Could that really be called living? I wasn't sure, but I didn't believe that I was alive without a reason. If my life no longer had a purpose, why would I be alive? I then realized, before passing out to sleep again, that I still had some part left to play here. Something in the asylum would be left undone without me. Maybe, I thought, when I wake up, I'll try to figure out just what that is.


	6. Lucky To Be Alive

When I awoke again after who knows how long, I smelled pleasant food; well, better than I was accustomed to smelling. The sisters cooked their own food and the food for their patients. I felt I might try to sit up in bed and eat something. I heard someone run over to my bedside and hold my sides while I lifted myself up. They steadied me and placed a pillow behind my back so that my back would not touch the cold rails. I looked up to see that it was the same sister from earlier. I mumbled a thank you and asked if I might have something to eat.

"Of course, dear," she smiled and walked away to get some food for me. I looked down to see that I had been given another dress to wear. I guessed that my old one had been ripped and blood-soaked from the whipping. I tried to get my mind off of my punishment and think about my purpose. What was I still alive for? I would have a few peaceful days in the infirmary to think about it. I leaned back softly on the cozy pillow, although it did sting my cuts, and closed my eyes. A few days of rest in the company of the friendly infirmary staff would be nice.

The nun walked back in with a bowl of soup in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She sat them on the table next to me and started to walk away, when she turned around and said, "Oh, and there's a young man who's been very concerned with your condition. He's in the bed next to you." She left the room.

I turned my head to the left to see a young man sitting in the bed, his legs hanging off the bed facing me. He looked up at me.

"Coulmier!" I cried in surprise. "How did you get in here?"

"I was brought here by a group of laundresses. I passed out shortly after we finished talking. One of the laundresses tried to ask me something, and when I didn't answer, she called for help and a few of them carried me here. I suffered major loss of blood. I almost bled to death. The sisters told me what happened to you - that you were whipped. How many lashings did they give you?"

"Forty." I replied pitifully. His eyes widened in shock.

"I only received thirty," he said quietly. He was very sympathetic to my pain, I could hear it in his voice. "The only thing the sisters didn't tell me was why you were being punished. Could you tell me?"

"The guards accused me of hiding your manuscript. They kept beating me and asking me where it was, but I told them I didn't know what they were talking about. They didn't believe me and kept beating me, but I kept denying it. Finally, they gave up, but not before hitting me with a cane. Then I passed out. But it's okay, your secret is still safe."

He looked at me with absolute concern and graciousness. "You went through all that . . . for me?"

"Yes," I said honestly.

"But, why?"

"Because I promised to keep your story a secret, and I was not willing to break the promise I'd made to the only friend I have."

He walked over to me slowly and sat down next to me on the bed. He knew he couldn't hug me, nor I him, for the pain would be too great. Instead he placed his hand on mind and I placed my other hand on top of his. We smiled at each other for a long time. It was not at all awkward seeing each other for the first time face to face without the barrier of a cold, stone wall. And though our bodies were in shambles, our hearts were overjoyed. We forgot about our pain as we continued to talk things; lighter, happier things. Questions about his past could wait awhile. We were thoroughly charmed to have one another's company. We were more than lucky to have one another in a place were cold hearts try their hardest to stamp out all that is good and right in the world. Even if they separated us or sealed off our talking-hole, I knew that we would find a way to talk with one another.

It was then that a thought came to me. Maybe my reason for staying alive was to help Coulmier regain his sanity, or maybe to help him find faith again, or maybe to let him know that he's lucky to be alive. He still had some purpose yet to serve, and I was going to try my hardest to help him find out what that was.

After all, that's what friends are for. Two friends, lucky enough to be alive, and to feel the kind hand of friendship once more.


End file.
